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They Saved Land Like Rockefellers

The limestone buttes, granite steppes and near-permanent icecap that make up the urban expanse known as Rockefeller Center constitute the best-known landscape connected to the famous family's name.

But those 12 acres in Midtown Manhattan are far from the only vista that owes its existence to Rockefeller philanthropy.

Over the last century, five generations of Rockefellers have used the family wealth to reshape the American horizon, creating a magnificent panorama of open spaces and more than 20 national parks from the rocky coast of Maine to the icecapped mountains of Wyoming.

These natural oases are not always linked to the Rockefeller name, but tonight they will be. As part of the yearlong celebration of its 100th anniversary, the National Audubon Society, one of the nation's largest and oldest conservation organizations, is honoring the family for a record of conservation that matches the society's century-long existence.

The towering Palisades that guard the west bank of the Hudson River were preserved with Rockefeller money. So was Colonial Williamsburg. The family created exquisite miniatures like Greenacre Park, tucked between two buildings on East 51st Street in Manhattan, and it donated 35,000 acres to help form Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Part of the family's Pocantico estate in Westchester County has become a beloved forest preserve, and an educational center known as the Stone Barns.

The Cloisters, Acadia National Park, Forest Hill Park, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy -- the list of the family's efforts to conserve and protect the environment goes on and on.

That enormous contribution came at a price. Mr. Flicker said he was mindful that the family derived its enormous wealth from the exploitation of a nonrenewable natural resource, oil, and that the pursuit of oil over the last century had done enormous environmental damage. But he said that what was more important was that for the last century the family had used its wealth for public good.

The 90-year-old patriarch of the family, David Rockefeller, said that conservation was a far more continuous thread in the Rockefeller saga than was the Standard Oil Company, which his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr., created, expanded and then retired from, all before 1900. "I feel no sense of apology that he did what he did," Mr. Rockefeller said during an interview in his office on the 56th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. "Quite the contrary."

Mr. Rockefeller's older brother Laurance, who died in 2004, once said that a "land-saving gene" ran through the family, compelling all its members to assume responsibility for the environment. David Rockefeller said it was a sensibility about conservation that originated with his grandfather, who, with other wealthy New Yorkers, contributed money a century ago to keep the rock face of the Palisades from being pulverized into gravel for roads, and took full form with his father, John D. Rockefeller Jr.

"The family had a wonderful example in Father," Mr. Rockefeller said. "More than any of us, he did an amazing number of things."

Rockefeller Center is unusual in that it bears the family name. Outside New York, John D. Rockefeller Jr. kept his involvement under wraps as he bought thousands of acres of wilderness to limit speculation. It was only after the land was deeded to the public that the family effort was revealed, though even then the Rockefeller name was seldom included in a park's name.

Larry Rockefeller, the son of Laurance S. Rockefeller, was an environmental lawyer who worked for 25 years with the Natural Resources Defense Council (supported by Rockefeller funds) and is now a trustee of the organization. He said the family also shared a "hands-on ethic" that drove many of them. "If we see a problem, we roll up our sleeves, enlist the help of others, apply our resources and get the job done," he said.

For the last two decades, Larry Rockefeller, 61, has been quietly buying land along the Beaverkill, a famous fly-fishing stream in the Catskill Mountains, to preserve it from haphazard development. He said he was doing just what his grandfather did, though on a smaller scale.

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"It's not so different in a way from what millions of American families feel," he said. "There's a real commitment to conservation and the environment that starts with the outdoors."

Many of the family's most spectacular conservation efforts began with a family camping trip. "As Father traveled, if he saw things that needed to be done, he took steps and did something about them," David Rockefeller said.

He recalls accompanying his father to California in the 1920's to see the giant redwood trees. When the elder Rockefeller found out that the trees were in danger of being clear-cut by a timber company, he helped buy 9,400 acres that he then donated to the state. That grove of ancient redwoods, including one that is more than 2,000 years old, is considered the largest old-growth redwood forest in the world.

Mr. Rockefeller said the family appreciated and enjoyed wilderness but also realized that it could share that experience with other Americans and still save some for itself. But as in any family, there sometimes were disagreements.

When his brother Laurance gave the remaining 1,106 acres of Rockefeller land in the Jackson Hole, Wyo., area to Grand Teton National Park in 2001, the gift sent shock waves through the family.

"Some of us felt he was overly generous and enthusiastic," said Mr. Rockefeller, who had honeymooned on the Jackson Hole land and liked to go back. "I would have hoped that he would have at least waited until the end of his life to do it. That would have given us a little more time."

Mr. Rockefeller said that if environmental regulations had existed at the time his grandfather was creating Standard Oil, the company would still have grown because such laws would probably have been strong enough to prevent desecration of the land but not so restrictive as to prevent oil drilling where it made sense.

He takes a pragmatic view of the current energy situation, and said he would support drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge if it were done "very selectively."

"I'm a great believer in conservation," he said, "but I think there has to be a balance between the energy needs of the country and the preservation of the land."

Most members of the family disagree. "It is the last great frontier," said Larry Rockefeller, who helped organize the group Americans for Alaska in the 1970's and has been a strong force for conservation since. "It should be saved."

More than 30 members of the Rockefeller family -- ranging in age from 17 to 90 -- will be honored by the Audubon Society at tonight's ceremony, each one involved with the environment. Most times, though, the support is low key and the family tries to shun the spotlight.

"The important part for us is not having our name on it," said Gail O'Neill Caulkins, 52, a fifth-generation Rockefeller who is president of the Greenacre Foundation, which assists in the maintenance of city parks and supports dozens of community gardens, "it's seeing that something gets done."

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A version of this article appears in print on November 15, 2005, on Page B00001 of the National edition with the headline: They Saved Land Like Rockefellers. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe